Yeah, I kind of thought that. But as somebody who also teachers this stuff I find that sometimes a point worth making is when you run across something like this that is really crunchy it should at least be considered that the problem is data design. In a lot of app rescue projects I find that the wrong question is being asked and the primary question that should be asked is does the data design need to be changed (for example here by requiring the field be of a fixed length and using validation to fix those fields entered in the wrong format.)
Anyway, was just raising the point more as an academic one for lurkers.
Will be interested to see the one-line solution.
>>Maybe this really isn't an answer to the question but if I was given this data the first thing I'd do is create a "shadow" field to hold some algorithmically transformed version of this mess to put it a a logically indexable form. No?
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>No. (no offense meant) - That's a good idea in theory, but I need something I can publish to a wide audience in strict hardcopy, especially geared toward Access users that aren't very advanced. Just a command line for indexing, basically, that even a novice could use easily.
Charles Hankey
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- Thomas Hardy
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